# AMRAD Accomplishments
Over the years, AMRAD has been instrumental in advancing amateur radio
technology and in telecommunications for persons with disabilities.
Here are our accomplishments:
## Educational Activities:
* Sponsored and/or hosted three ARRL Digital Communications Conferences in
the Washington, DC area.
* Convened 1999 AMRAD Technical Symposium in Falls Church, VA.
* Authored the ARRL's *Spread Spectrum Sourcebook* (used as a reference
in the IEEE individual learning course).
* Contributed to the spread spectrum material in the ARRL Handbook.
* Hold monthly meetings devoted to presentations on technical subjects (recently
including multimedia, radio local area neworks, software defined radio,
ultrawideband technology and digital broadcasting).
* Meet weekly at Saturday luncheons to exchange ideas and project assistance.
* Continue to publish the authoritative AMRAD Newletter as a source for experimental
information.
* Provided judges for Northern Virginia science fairs.
##Experimentation:
* Made the first HF contact on packet radio on the east coast of the USA.
* AMRAD/W4RI and K2SZE aired first amateur spread spectrum transmissions
on HF.
* Tested police radars for susceptibilty to amateur transmitters.
* Operated low-frequency (LF) transmitters in Northern Virginia under an
FCC experimental license.
* Jointly with the Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) and the Deutscher
Amateur-Radio-Club (DARC), AMRAD sponsored competiton for first successful
amateur transatlantic transmissions at LF.
* AMRAD/AA4HS operates a radio receiver remotely controlled via the Internet.
* Frank KØBRA, Bernie W4SW, and André N4ICK made field measurements on Broadband over Power Line (BPL) systems in Maryland and Manassas, VA.
[[Frank_Bernie_BPL_DSCF0751]]
##Development:
* Developed the AX.25 amateur packet protocol which was adopted by AMSAT
and standardized by ARRL Digital Committee.
* Built and operated a landline computer bulletin boards believed to be the
second in the USA.
* Built and operated one of the first radio bulletin boards in the world.
* Designed and constructed the AMRAD-OSCAR 27 satellite payload in conjunction
with EYESAT.
* Designed the popular AMRAD/KØBRA active antenna published in *QST*.
* Developed the Computer Assisted Relay System used by many statewide deaf
TTY relay services.
* Developed the first BBS based ASCII-to-TTY converter ("TEDIVERTER") for
deaf telecommunications.
* Contributed to FCC rules on spread spectrum and conducted spread spectrum
testing with the FCC.
##Operational Activities:
* Provided safety communications for cross country races.
* Operate the [W4CIA](../w4cia) (formerly WD4IWG) FM repeater on 147.81/147.21 MHz near
Tysons Corner, VA for use by experimenters.
* Operated the Handicapped Educational eXchange (HEX) BBS for use with ASCII
and TTY modems.
* Provided Internet access for the Northern Virginia Resource Center for Deaf
and Hard of Hearing Persons.